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The ego of Type One is primarily identified with a blockage or constriction of their Moving-Instinctive Center. Ones consequently are out of touch with their instinctual energy and have trouble feeling their own Being, with its rightful weight and sense of strength. To compensate for this, they draw on emotional energy to stimulate them into action. Anger results from this scrambling of emotional and instinctual energy – nothing gets us motivated like anger. ('Children are starving, and we're not doing anything about it!' 'This room is such a mess that I can't stand it anymore! I have to clean it up.') Of course, all people use their emotions to motivate themselves on occasion, but this is the area in which the average One is most fixated.

But this pattern leaves average Ones far from relaxed, causing them to lose more contact with the flow, presence, solidity, and connectedness that come from the Instinctive Center. Once Ones have become identified with this pattern, they need to stay angry and irritated with themselves and with others to compensate for their felt lack of substantiality. As a result, average Ones cannot act without the interference of subconscious emotional reactions and cannot feel their feelings without acting on them. Despite seeing themselves as rational, they are driven by strong emotional subtexts. Ones need to care passionately about what they do, and they can be exuberant in regard to their positions and projects.

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Ones are often characterized as rational thinkers. However, when we investigate the true function of the Thinking Center – the quiet and open mind – we see that this is not a trait of most Ones. Of course, this has nothing to do with their thinking ability or intelligence; they can be brilliant and capable of pondering profound topics. But the Thinking Center is not part of the primary knot of identifications on which their ego structure is based.

Instead, Ones are doers who like practical ideas. They do not spend much time in the pursuit of open-ended inquiry or in the pursuit of knowledge that does not have a practical result. Moreover, Ones, like Nines, may have a comprehensive philosophy of life, but its purpose is to defend and support their actions, not to open them to new possibilities, let alone to the quiet mind. Principles, strong convictions, and rules about life are, in fact, expressions of the Instinctive Center. If we observe ourselves, we will see that strong opinions arise from our 'gut'. ('Save the whales! Business before pleasure!') Of course, ideas may support these views, but their source is not in the Thinking Center.

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In unhealthy Ones, the thinking is also taken over by the scrambling of instincts and feelings, leading to irrational and obsessive ideas and inflexible opinions. While average Ones feel guilty when they violate their principles, even in minor ways, unhealthy Ones are able to deceive themselves by rationalizing various compulsive and contradictory behaviors. Their reasoning becomes convoluted in order to justify behavior that they would readily condemn in others.

On the other hand, it is helpful for Ones to focus on the third center, Thinking, by learning to quiet the mind. This allows them to see the relative nature of their own opinions and convictions. There may be much truth in their ideas and proposals, but their approach to that truth is not the only one or necessarily the best one. This helps them find better, more flexible means of communicating the truths that they have perceived. By quieting the mind, Ones dispel their inner judgment and criticism so that they have a more direct relationship with themselves and their environment, enhancing their ability to discern appropriate courses of action.

Ones can also be helped by learning to discern their emotional responses from their instinctual impulses. They do not try to get a substitute sense of Being from their passions or convictions, and they learn to stay with the sense of deficiency in their Moving-Instinctive Center. As they do so, they come in contact with the Essential solidity, steadiness, and autonomy of the Instinctive Center. Their actions become more conscious and directed without being tense. At the same time, as their Feeling Center is freed from its 'knot' with the Instinctive Center, deep experiences of Essential value and connectedness arise. Ones no longer feel that they must strive after perfection to 'earn' their existence. They feel profound compassion for others as well as for themselves.

[Source: Understanding the Enneagram: The Practical Guide of Personality Types]